Machines equipped with various implements such as tractors, pavers, graders, scrapers and still others are used for modifying substrate material or preparing a substrate for various end uses. In the paving and road building contexts, machines known as cold planers are used to remove previously deposited paving material in preparation for placement of a substitute paving material mat. A cold planer is typically equipped with a rotor that breaks paving material into chunks of manageable size, and conveys the removed paving material to a truck for disposal or other use such as fill.
In recent decades, there has been increased interest in in situ processing and reuse of paving material. Most persons will be familiar with cracked, uneven, and/or potholed road and parking lot surfaces. The economy of reusing paving material in place, without removing it and transporting it elsewhere, should be readily apparent. Machines known as recyclers, mixers, or reclaimers are in increasing use throughout the world for preparing substrates to support a new traffic-bearing paving material mat. Such machines break apart old paving material and mix the chunks of paving material with underlying material such as soil, to produce a prepared substrate for placement of a new traffic-bearing surface such as a road, parking lot, airstrip, et cetera. Achieving a desired composition of the mixed material once processed has proven to be challenging. Moreover, it is often desirable to mix additives, typically in a liquid form, into the mixed soil and broken-apart paving material. The paving material that is reclaimed can vary in composition, physical state such as hardness, aggregate size or content, extent of cracks, bumps, or other features. For these and other reasons, controlling the rotor speed, rotor depth, machine speed, and application of additives, can require design and operational capabilities of the machine that are relatively complex. U.S. Pat. No. 8,794,869 to Schlenker et al. is directed to an exemplary rotary mixer having a rotor chamber with a rotor therein. An electronic control module adjusts a degree of pulverization of reclaimed surface to achieve a desired end result. The relatively harsh operating conditions experienced by the machine shown in Schlenker et al., and other analogous machines, generally requires that machine components be regularly serviced. In complex machines such as a rotary mixer or the like, accessing different valves, bearings, electronics, pumps, sprayers, motors, and still other types of on-board equipment for servicing can be challenging.